I spend the vast majority of the winter months tucked up into the folds of many layers of blankets on my couch, watching DVR’ed television and sipping cocoa. Fine, that’s not true, but often I wish it were. Instead I spend my winters shivering, traversing the sidewalk hunched over with my head down, and complaining about the inexorable cold the second I arrive at my destination with chapped hands and a runny nose. New York winters are brutal, but as I understand, I’m actually spoiled having to put up only with this. Here the temperature rarely plummets below 0˚F, whereas in other cities, they’re dealing with temperatures below zero on a daily basis—I’m talking to you, Minneapolis.

Here they are.

The Top 5 Things I Hate About Winter:

5. When you’re in someone’s home and they just don’t have the heat high enough. You hint. You chatter your teeth. They don’t offer you so much as a cup of tea and they inevitably have one of those cold leather couches.

4. Falling on the ice. (This happens to me a lot because among my favorite winter pastimes is “ice skating,” though it’s most always met with the response, “Stop sliding around on that black ice, Laura, you’re going to fall!” And then I do, and I hate it.)

3. Runny noses and teary eyes. (Every time I come inside I have to wipe the tears from my eyes and blow my nose. Even then, it never really stops running. And do I ever carry tissues? Of course not.)

2. (a.) The great heaps of gray snow that are a permanent fixture on every sidewalk until mid-March. Upside: when the pile gets really tall, you can climb on it—it offers a sizable deal of fun in the cold while you’re waiting for the bus and you’ve grown tired of ice skating on the sidewalk.

2. (b.) Falling off of the gray snow pile into the street—people stare.

1. Cold feet. If you don’t wear the right boots, your feet are cold for months straight. And once they get cold, they never get warm, especially if you’re hanging out at this person’s house: See 5.

There’s just one solution and I’ve got it: Appropriate winter boots. Now, appropriate very seldom implies cute and fashionable, but I would never suggest something that wasn’t. I’ve got your backs, girls.